


The Miracle of St Augustine's

by ImprobableDreams900



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Historical, The Arrangement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9674069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900
Summary: Something unusual's going on at St Augustine's Church, and Thomas is on the case.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pudupudu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pudupudu/gifts).



> For PuduPudu, who wanted a crossover and a distraction from her schoolwork about St Augustine.
> 
> Took three hours from start to finish.

There was a miracle happening in Brompton.

Or those were the reports, at least. This might not have merited much interest—self-proclaimed “miracles” were as common as fleas on a mangy dog these days—but the thing was that it _kept happening_. So maybe it wasn’t _one_ miracle as much as a pandemic of them.

Detective Constable Thomas Nightingale didn’t believe in miracles. This was about to change.

Thomas frowned at the church across the road. He had never studied architecture—it was one of the few things he hadn’t studied—but he guessed it must be a Gothic Revival. The most notable thing about its towering façade was that it was polychromatic—that is, the reddish brown stone was striped with cream bands all the way up the dual octagonal spires. It rather gave it the appearance of a sandwich cake, in Thomas’ opinion.

It was drizzling slightly, so he stayed underneath the overhang of the building behind him as he gazed across the road. There was a queue of at least fifty shabby, poorly-dressed Londoners starting at the church’s main doors and running along the street. They looked down on their luck, exhausted and spent, but who wasn’t these days? The economic depression had hit them all hard after the conclusion of the Great War, and it had only worsened lately.

Most of the people in the queue were injured or sick; he could see several leaning on improvised walking sticks or clutching themselves. A number of women held crying babies, the sounds of their wails reaching Thomas even across the street.

The poor and destitute queueing outside a church wasn’t so unusual in and of itself—it was the people _exiting_ the church that had convinced Master Killough to send Thomas to have a poke around.

As a chap in a shabby coat had taken it upon himself to climb onto a box and proclaim to the people slogging past in the street, there was an angel inside the church who was healing the poor.

Thomas didn’t believe in angels any more than he did miracles, and he had no doubt it was a completely ordinary man behind all of this. Perhaps he was a charlatan with so-called “spiritual powers” that amounted to little more than tricking people into imagining their ailments had been healed. Or maybe he had something more powerful up his sleeve. That’s what Thomas was here to find out.

As he stepped out from underneath the shelter of the overhang of the building behind him and down into the street, he wondered what he was supposed to do if the “angel” did turn out to be a practitioner. Master Killough hardly expected him to stop someone from healing people, surely?

As Thomas crossed the street and neared the door of the church, he drew a number of harsh looks. It might have been because he was bypassing the queue, but it was more likely his suit that drew their animosity. It wasn’t particularly high-end, but it was a sight nicer than what any of them were wearing. Thomas would be lying if he said the depression had hit him particularly hard—his family had been very lucky about how they’d invested their money.

“Excuse me,” he said, not slowing his pace as he neared where the queue filed through the door. “Police.”

The interior of St Augustine’s Church was dim, rainy shadows being cast along the walls and floor by the light seeping through the clerestory and rosette of stained glass windows in the far apse.

It was louder inside than it had been in the street, and the queue running up the length of the nave was more agitated. They leaned around each other, sniffling and coughing and giving the occasional odd moan or wail, peering up towards the sanctuary.

Thomas took a moment to survey the scene, and as he did so there was a chorus of _hallelujah_ s from the front of the queue. An excited ripple passed through the room, and someone started crying.

There was a trickle of people walking back down the length of the queue towards him. Many of the people in the queue reached out to touch them as they walked past. Some stopped and started crying, and others kept reciting prayers, disbelief scrawled on their faces as they stared down at themselves as though unable to believe the truth of their presence.

A young woman was nearing Thomas, and he stepped aside to let her pass. She was dressed in the same shabby, patched attire as everyone else, but her eyes were bright and she did not seem to have anything wrong with her.

“Bless you, sir,” she said, voice choked, and moved past him.

Thomas felt around for _vestigia_. There was a faint trace—candle smoke and fresh timber and aging paper—but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a church. 

Frowning, Thomas strode forward, following the line of the queue as he walked up the nave. Again, he drew looks, but he kept his gaze forward.

When he reached the end of the queue, where a small crowd had gathered, he stopped short.

An elderly man bent over a cane shuffled forward and bowed his head. In front of him, sprawled sideways in a relatively plain chair with his legs over one of the arms and looking very bored, sat the man half of London had turned out to see.

The elderly man raised his hands in supplication as far as he could, which was admittedly not far. “Our Father, who art in Heaven—”

“Art better be staying there for a good while longer,” the angel interrupted, and waved his hand.

For a moment nothing happened, and then, slowly, the elderly man straightened up. His fingers lost their grip on his cane and it clattered to the floor.

The crowd behind him erupted into cheers and praises.

The elderly man raised his head and stared up at the rosette stained glass window. “I am healed! Oh, Lord—”

“Next,” the angel said, and rolled his eyes. “Come on, keep it moving.”

Another ripple went through the queue as the elderly man started hobbling to the side, waving his arms and continuing his prayers.

Thomas felt for _vestigia_. Impossibly, there was none. He took a bold step forward, holding out a hand to halt the next person in line, a scrawny youth with a twisted leg.

“One moment. Police.”

An unhappy murmur went through the crowd, and he heard “police” repeated down the queue.

Thomas ignored them, keeping his attention on the angel. “I’d like a word, please.”

The angel shifted his same bored gaze to Thomas, and the detective constable realized with a jolt of surprise that the man’s eyes were a bright yellow.

The angel raised a hand lazily and beckoned him over. Thomas crossed the space and ground to a halt a few feet away.

“In private,” Thomas requested.

“Nah,” the angel said, and waved his hand again. “Off you pop.”

There was no _vestigia_ , but Thomas felt the power of the suggestion hit him like a wall. Luckily, Thomas had plenty of experience in this area, and he closed his mind off to the very possibility of leaving.

The yellow-eyed angel turned his attention back to the queue. “Next.”

The youth with the twisted leg started forward, but Thomas wasn’t done yet. “I really would like that word, if you don’t mind.”

The angel’s head swiveled back around and he narrowed his eyes. “Bugger off, I said.” There was no gesture this time, but the suggestion rolled over him again, stronger this time.

Thomas gritted his metaphorical teeth and rode it out.

When he didn’t move after several seconds, the angel’s expression grew decidedly suspicious. With sudden agility, he swung his legs off the arm of the chair and stood up. He gave Thomas a once-over from head to foot, expression calculating.

Behind him, the crowd of people started shifting unhappily, and the youth with the twisted leg looked devastated. “Please, sir—”

The angel glanced over at them. “Party’s over, boys.” Without another word, he turned and started walking along the edge of the sanctuary of the church, towards one of the side doors.

“Just a minute—” Thomas began, starting after him. Behind them, the crowd began wailing and cursing bobbies everywhere.

The angel reached the side door and pushed it open. Thomas hurried after him.

He stepped out onto the rainy street and saw the angel starting around the perimeter of the building.

“How were you able to do that?” Thomas demanded, hurrying after the angel. The latter kept increasing his pace, so Thomas had to half-jog to keep up with him.

“It’s called magic for a reason, boy-o,” the angel said flatly. In the distance, a bell started chiming the hour. 

“What you’re doing is highly irregular,” Thomas asserted, trying to figure out how he could convince the so-called angel to return to the Folly with him. He wasn’t sure if he could overpower him, and he doubted a public duel was what Killough had had in mind.

“Bite me.”

“…Er.” That was not an expression Thomas was familiar with, or let’s say he sincerely hoped it was an expression. The man sounded British, but Thomas had spent some time out of the country recently and it was possible some of the slang had changed.

“I’ll have to report this,” Thomas said, trying to bring the conversation back onto safer ground.

The angel let out a short laugh and stepped out into the middle of the road without looking. “To whom? Inspector Lestrade?”

Thomas frowned and jogged after him, waving an apologetic hand at the automobile that had to jolt to a halt to avoid hitting them.

“You ought to know that magic is under very strict regulations in this country—” Thomas began, but the angel cut him off again.

“Listen, I’m late for an appointment, so buzz off.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

The angel came to a stop on the pavement and turned to face him. Now that they were outside, the angel’s pupils had constricted, and Thomas fought down an instinctual step back when he saw that they were slitted like a cat’s.

“You’d better back off now if you want to see tomorrow, okay?” the angel hissed, and suddenly anything angelic about him had vanished. The very air around him seemed to shimmer, and Thomas felt the temperature drop several degrees. The man in front of him was definitely a powerful practitioner, and he wondered bleakly how the Folly hadn’t been aware of his presence before.

Unfortunately for the angel, Thomas had never been particularly good at being intimidated. “The law does not, as you say, ‘back off.’”

The angel hissed and for a moment the air around him crackled even more, but then he simply huffed, turned, and walked away, grumbling something under his breath.

Thomas blinked and resumed following him.

The angel picked up his pace again and slipped through the middle of a crowd of pedestrians, the passersby splitting around him like wood around an axe. Thomas hastened to follow, but the crowd closed behind the angel and it took him a moment to fight his way through.

When he had freed himself, he saw the angel had gained several metres on him. Thomas broke into a sprint just as the angel glanced over his shoulder at him and vanished around the corner of a building.

Thomas gained the same corner quickly, but he stumbled to a surprised halt. It was a rather short dead end, and the angel was nowhere to be seen. He did a quick three-sixty, and felt the area for _vestigia_ , but nothing seemed amiss.

Baffled, Thomas walked back onto the cobbled pavement and frowned up and down the road. The angel was gone.

The Folly would definitely have something to say about this.

**Author's Note:**

> Will there be more? I don't know???


End file.
